Kingstown St. Vincent May 14, 2026-Residents of the Grenadines may be facing increased health risks linked to unreliable water supplies, according to Health Minister Daniel Cummings, who says concerns are growing over possible connections between poor water quality and kidney disease.
Speaking during NBC Radio’s Face to Face programme, Cummings said preliminary observations suggest people in the Grenadines appear to suffer disproportionately from renal failure compared with other parts of St Vincent and the Grenadines.
“The evidence is that the people of the Grenadines proportionately suffer more from renal failure,” he said.
“It is quite possible that this is related to the quality of the water that they consume.”
The minister stressed that no formal scientific conclusion had yet been reached and said proper studies would be required to establish any direct link between kidney disease and water quality.
However, he argued that the situation reinforced the urgency of improving access to safe, treated water across the Grenadines.
The islands rely heavily on rainwater harvesting systems and community cisterns because of the absence of rivers and significant groundwater reserves.
Cummings said Hurricane Beryl severely damaged many homes, storage tanks and guttering systems used to collect rainwater, while some public cisterns were reportedly contaminated after being broken into.
“There’s work going on now to clean those storage tanks and to sanitize them,” he said.
The minister said emergency measures currently include trucking and shipping water to affected islands while authorities work toward permanent desalination systems.
He described the present situation in parts of the southern Grenadines as “supercritical”.
“You cannot have such significant segments of our population going without water,” he said.
Cummings said the government’s long-term plan includes the installation of solar-powered desalination plants capable of supplying residents with treated water year-round.